Page 5 of Closing the Distance

“No,” I say, but it’s not the entire truth. I’m worried the longer I stay, the more the lines of tonight will blur and I’ll want so much more than he can give me. This doesn’t seem like a man who settles down with a teacher who had a bad upbringing and no family roots whatsoever. This looks like a man who ends up with some model or celebrity and has his wedding splashed all over the pages of People magazine. He’s so far out of my league, it’s not even funny. I’m just grateful he doesn’t seem to have figured that out yet.

“Good,” he says. “Now take your clothes off nice and slow for me.”

“What about you?”

He smiles, his hands already reaching for the buttons on his shirt. “I’ll be doing the same thing.”

“Why don’t you take my clothes off for me?” I ask, trying to be a little sexy when really I just want his hands on me.

He leans over me on the bed, caging me in with his thick arms, and slides his nose along my jaw before nipping at my ear. A zing of desire shoots straight to my clit, and my stomach clenches. “Because if I touch you, I won’t be able to control myself and take this as slowly as I want to. God, you have no idea how desperate I am for you, to be inside you, how much restraint it’s taking not to ravage you right now.”

A needy moan escapes. “Please,” I beg. God, I want him to do exactly that. I can’t remember the last time I was ravaged. If I’m honest, the answer is probably never, at least not the way I imagine this man will. I’ll be hugely disappointed if he turns out to be a dud in bed.

He groans and quickly stands back up, putting distance between us. “Lexi, you’re fucking killing me.”

But he still doesn’t touch me. If I want him to, then I need to entice him with something he can’t say no to. I stand up and spin around. “Can you unzip me?”

I hear him take a ragged breath before the heat of his body is at my back, and he grips the zipper in his big hands, pulling it down slowly. When he gets to the bottom, he pushes aside the upper half of my dress and drops a kiss at the top of my spine. “Where on earth did you come from?” he whispers so quietly, I’m not sure he meant for me to hear.

But I did, and those words affect me nearly as much as his touch. Not just the words themselves, but howhe says them. Like I’m a gift—someone who’s wanted.

I’ve never been wanted by anyone, not for anything real at least. Emotion sweeps through me, but I have lots of practice pushing it down, so that’s what I do—shove it down as far as I can until I’m certain it won’t threaten to ruin tonight for me.

When I’m sure my emotions won’t show on my face, I spin around and slip out of my dress until it pools in a pile at my feet.

His eyes darken and smolder. “God, you are fucking gorgeous.”

Nerves swirl and swoop in my belly as I laugh it off. “I’m sure you say that to all the girls.”

His serious gaze pierces me and forces the lighthearted smile right off my face. “Not at all.” He slides his hands into my hair again, holding me close and searing my soul with his intense gaze. “Lexi, I haven’t felt like this about someone I just met. Ever.”

I swallow thickly. No. That can’t possibly be true.He’s just playing me. That’s what obviously rich guys do when they’re with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Right?

“I don’t care. Kiss me,” I mutter, pushing up on my toes in an attempt to close the distance between our mouths.

He holds me just far enough away that I can’t get what I want. “Not until you tell me you understand. You’re special.” He says it so softly and tenderly my heart aches.

“You don’t know me,” I say, hating how low and shaky my voice has gotten.

“I know enough. I know you’re passionate about your students. You care about your friend—I heard you making sure she would be safe with Devon. You are respectful and kind. You thanked the waitress even though she kept trying to throw herself at me. You wished the bouncers a good night, and our driver a safe drive home. Do you know how many women have done that when I’m around?”

I shake my head.

“None. You are special, and I know we’re just getting to know each other, but I can’t wait to learn everything I can, and not just how to make you scream my name,” he adds with a soft smile, but there’s still an intensity in his eyes that makes my stomach clench with nerves.

I can’t give him what he thinks I can. I can give him this—sex and a night together. But this man has his life together, and I’m broken. He doesn’t need my baggage. If he really knew me, he’d discover what a mess my life has been and that I’m nothing but ordinary. There’s never been anything remotely special about me.

“Do you understand?” he asks again, his eyes pleading.

“Yes,” I say. I understand that he’s going to make it difficult for me to leave him. Already my heart aches, wanting to believe his words, even when I have a lifetime of examples proving them wrong.

Words are pretty things that are often empty and meaningless. Actions never fail to tell the truth.

I’ll give him my body, but that’s all I can give him.

He stares at me for another minute, and then because I need to move this along before I fall any deeper, I run my hands over his bare chest where his shirt gapes and slide my hands up and over his pecs until I reach his shoulders and push his shirt off. He lets me, his eyes never leaving mine but growing heavy-lidded the longer I touch him.

Once his shirt hits the floor, I move my hands to his belt, but he grabs them to stop me. “If you touch me there right now, this will be over embarrassingly fast. It’s…it’s been a while.” He says it like he’s self-conscious, but I’m curious what his definition of a while is.

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